"Every opportunity was given for apostatizing and for escaping death.

Immunity could be secured by pointing out a fellow convert, and when it is observed that among the seven or eight feudatories who embraced Christianity only two or three died in that faith, we must conclude that not a few cases of recanting occurred among the va.s.sals.

Remarkable fort.i.tude, however, is said to have been displayed."

Caron, one of the Dutch traders of Hirado, writing in 1636, says:

At first the believers in Christ were only beheaded and afterwards attached to a cross, which was considered as a sufficiently heavy punishment. But when many of them were seen to die with emotions of joy and pleasure, some even to go singing to the place of execution; and when although thirty and sometimes one hundred were put to death at a time, and it was found that their numbers did not appear to diminish, it was then determined to use every exertion to change their joy into grief and their songs into tears and groans of misery.

To effect this they were tied to stakes and burned alive; were broiled on wooden gridirons, and thousands were thus wretchedly destroyed. But as the number of Christians was not perceptibly lessened by these cruel punishments, they became tired of putting them to death, and attempts were then made to make the Christians abandon their faith by the infliction of the most dreadful torments which the most diabolical invention could suggest. The j.a.panese Christians, however, endured these persecutions with a great deal of steadiness and courage; very few, in comparison with those who remained steadfast in the faith, were the number of those who fainted under the trials and abjured their religion. It is true that these people possess, on such occasions, a stoicism and an intrepidity of which no examples are to be met with in the bulk of other nations.

Neither men nor women are afraid of death. Yet an uncommon steadfastness in the faith must, at the same time, be requisite to continue in these trying circ.u.mstances.

The intrepidity of the native converts was rivalled by the courage of their foreign teachers. Again and again these latter defied the j.a.panese authorities by visiting j.a.pan--not for the first time but occasionally even after having been deported. Contrary to the orders of the governors of Macao and Manila, nay of the King of Spain himself, the priests arrived, year after year, with the certainty of being apprehended and sent to the stake after brief periods of propagandism. In 1626, when the campaign of persecution was at its height, more than three thousand converts were baptized by these brave priests, of whom none is known to have escaped death except those that apostatized under torture, and they were very few, although not only could life be saved by abandoning the faith but also ample allowances of money could be obtained from the authorities. Anyone denouncing a propagandist received large reward, and the people were required to prove their orthodoxy by trampling upon a picture of Christ.

CONTINUATION OF THE FEUDS BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND THE PORTUGUESE

While the above events were in progress, the disputes between the Dutch, the Portuguese, and the Spaniards went on without cessation.

In 1636, the Dutch discovered in a captured Portuguese vessel a report written by the governor of Macao, describing a festival which had just been held there in honour of Vieyra, who had been martyred in j.a.pan. The Dutch transmitted this doc.u.ment to the j.a.panese "in order that his Majesty may see more clearly what great honour the Portuguese pay to those he had forbidden his realm as traitors to the State and to his crown." It does not appear that this accusation added much to the resentment and distrust against the Portuguese. At any rate, the Bakufu in Yedo took no step distinctly hostile to Portuguese laymen until the following year (1637), when an edict was issued forbidding "any foreigners to travel in the empire lest Portuguese with pa.s.sports bearing Dutch names might enter."

THE SHIMABARA REVOLT

At the close of 1637, there occurred a rebellion, historically known as the "Christian Revolt of Shimabara," which put an end to j.a.pan's foreign intercourse for over two hundred years. The Gulf of Nagasaki is bounded on the west by the island of Amakusa and by the promontory of Shimabara. In the early years of Jesuit propagandism in j.a.pan, Shimabara and Amakusa had been the two most thoroughly Christianized regions, and in later days they were naturally the scene of the severest persecutions. Nevertheless, the people might have suffered in silence, as did their fellow believers elsewhere, had they not been taxed beyond endurance to supply funds for an extravagant feudatory. j.a.panese annalists, however, relegate the taxation grievance to an altogether secondary place, and attribute the revolt solely to the instigation of five samurai who led a roving life to avoid persecution for their adherence to Christianity. Whichever version be correct, it is certain that the outbreak attracted all the Christians from the surrounding regions, and was officially regarded as a Christian rising. The Amakusa insurgents pa.s.sed over from that island to Shimabara, and on the 27th of January, 1638, the whole body--numbering, according to some authorities, twenty thousand fighting men with thirteen thousand women and children; according to others, little more than one-half of these figures--took possession of the dilapidated castle of Kara, which stood on a plateau with three sides descending one hundred feet perpendicularly to the sea and with a swamp on the fourth side.

The insurgents fought under flags inscribed with red crosses and their battle cries were "Jesus," "Maria," and "St. Iago." They defended the castle successfully against repeated a.s.saults until the 12th of April, when, their provisions and their ammunition alike being exhausted, they were overwhelmed and put to the sword, with the exception of 105 prisoners. During this siege the Dutch gave practical proof of their enmity to the Christianity of the Spaniards and Portuguese. For, the guns in the possession of the besiegers being too light to accomplish anything effective, application was made to Koeckebacker, the Dutch factor at Hirado, to lend ships carrying heavier metal. He complied by despatching the De Ryp, and her twenty guns threw 426 shots into the castle in fifteen days.

There has been handed down a letter carried by an arrow from the castle to the besiegers. It was not an appeal for mercy but a simple enumeration of reasons:--

"For the sake of our people we have now resorted to this castle. You will no doubt think that we have done this with the hope of taking lands and houses. Such is by no means the case. It is simply because Christianity is not tolerated as a distinct sect, which is well known to you. Frequent prohibitions have been published by the shogun, to our great distress. Some among us there are who consider the hope of future life as of the highest importance. For these there is no escape. Because they will not change their religion they incur various kinds of severe punishments, being inhumanly subjected to shame and extensive suffering, till at last for their devotion to the Lord of Heaven, they are tortured to death. Others, even men of resolution, solicitous for the sensitive body and dreading the torture, have, while hiding their grief, obeyed the royal will and recanted. Things continuing in this state, all the people have united in an uprising in an unaccountable and miraculous manner. Should we continue to live as heretofore and the above laws not be repealed, we must incur all sorts of punishments hard to be endured; we must, our bodies being weak and sensitive, sin against the infinite Lord of Heaven and from solicitude for our brief lives incur the loss of what we highly esteem. These things fill us with grief beyond endurance.

Hence we are in our present condition. It is not the result of a corrupt doctrine."

It seems probable that of the remaining j.a.panese Christians the great bulk perished at the ma.s.sacre of Kara. Thenceforth there were few martyrs, and though Christianity was not entirely extirpated in j.a.pan, it survived only in remote places and by stealth.

ENGRAVING: NANBAN BELL

ENGRAVING: THE "KAIYO KWAN," THE FIRST WARSHIP OF j.a.pAN (Built in Holland for the Tokugawa Feudal Government)

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

THE TOKUGAWA SHOGUNATE

THE Tokugawa family traced its descent from Nitta Yoshishige of the Minamoto sept (the Seiwa Genji) who flourished at the beginning of the thirteenth century. His son's place of residence was at the village of Tokugawa in Kotsuke province: hence the name, Tokugawa.

After a few generations, Chikauji, the then representative of the family, had to fly to the village of Matsudaira in Mikawa province, taking the name of Matsudaira. Gradually the family acquired possession of about one-half of Mikawa province, and in the seventh generation from Chikauji, the head of the house, Hirotada, crossing swords with Oda n.o.buhide, father of n.o.bunaga, sought succour from the Imagawa family, to which he sent his son, Ieyasu, with fifty other young samurai as hostages. This was in 1547, Ieyasu being then in his fifth year.

On the way from Okazaki, which was the stronghold of Hirotada, the party fell into the hands of n.o.buhide's officers, and Ieyasu was confined in a temple where he remained until 1559, when he obtained permission to return to Okazaki, being then a va.s.sal of the Imagawa family. But when (1569) the Imagawa suffered defeat in the battle of Okehazama, at the hands of Oda n.o.bunaga, Ieyasu allied himself with the latter. In 1570, he removed to Hamamatsu, having subjugated the provinces of Mikawa and Totomi. He was forty years old at the time of n.o.bunaga's murder, and it has been shown above that he espoused the cause of the Oda family in the campaign of Komak-yama. At forty-nine he became master of the Kwanto and was in his fifty-sixth year when Hideyoshi died. Ieyasu had nine sons: (1) n.o.buyasu; (2) Hideyasu (daimyo of Echizen); (3) Hidetada (second shoguri); (4) Tadayoshi (daimyo of Kiyosu); (5) n.o.buyoshi (daimyo of Mito); (6) Tadateru (daimyo of Echigo); (7) Yoshinao (daimyo of Owari); (8) Yorin.o.bu (daimyo of Kii), and (9) Yorifusa (daimyo of Mito). He had also three daughters; the first married to Okudaira Masan.o.bu; the second to Ikeda Terumasa, and the third to Asano Nagaakira.

EVENTS IMMEDIATELY PRIOR TO THE BATTLE OF SEKIGAHARA

The political complications that followed the death of the Taiko are extremely difficult to unravel, and the result is not commensurate with the trouble. Several annalists have sought to prove that Ieyasu strenuously endeavoured to observe faithfully the oath of loyalty made by him to Hideyoshi on the latter's death-bed. They claim for him that until his hands were forced he steadfastly and faithfully worked in the interests of Hideyoshi. But his acts do not lend themselves to any such interpretation. The best that can be said of him is that he believed himself to have been entrusted by the Taiko with discretionary power to determine the expediency of Hideyori's succession, and that he exercised that power in the interests of the Tokugawa family, not of the Toyotomi.

Circ.u.mstances helped him as they do generally help great men. From the time of the birth of the lady Yodo's second son, the official world in Kyoto had been divided into two factions. The Hidetsugu catastrophe accentuated the lines of division, and the Korean campaign had a similar effect by affording a field for bitter rivalry between the forces of Konishi Yukinaga, who belonged to the Yodo faction, and Kato Kiyomasa, who was a protege of Hideyoshi's wife, Yae. Further fuel was added to this fire of antagonism when the order went forth that the army should leave Korea, for the Kato faction protested against surrendering all the fruits of the campaign without any tangible recompense, and the Konishi party insisted that the Taiko's dying words must be obeyed implicitly. In this dispute, Ishida Katsushige, the chief actor in the Hidetsugu tragedy, took a prominent part. For, when in their capacity as belonging to the Board of Five Administrators, Ishida and Asano Nagamasa were sent to Kyushu to superintend the evacuation of the Korean peninsula, they, too, fell into a controversy on the same subject. Ieyasu stood aloof from both parties. His policy was to let the feud develop and to step in himself at the supreme moment.

On the other hand, it was the aim of Ishida Katsushige to involve the Tokugawa chief, thus compa.s.sing his downfall and opening an avenue for the ascension of Ishida himself to the place of dictator. Allied with Ishida in this plot was his colleague on the Board of Five Administrators, Masuda Nagamori. Their method was to create enmity between Ieyasu and Maeda Toshiiye, to whom the Taiko had entrusted the guardianship of Hideyori and of the Osaka Castle. This design was barely thwarted by the intervention of Hosokawa Tadaoki (ancestor of the present Marquis Hosokawa). Ieyasu was well informed as to Ishida's schemes on two other occasions; the first immediately before, the second just after, the death of the Taiko. In each case rumours of an armed outbreak were suddenly circulated in Fushimi for the purpose of creating confusion such as might furnish an opportunity to strike suddenly at Ieyasu. These essays failed in both instances, and the Tokugawa chief, instead of retaliating by direct impeachment of Ishida, applied himself to cementing close relations with certain great daimyo by matrimonial alliances. Such unions had been implicitly interdicted by the Taiko, and the procedure of Ieyasu elicited a written protest from the boards of the Five Senior Ministers and the Five Administrators. They threatened Ieyasu with dismissal from the former board unless he furnished a satisfactory explanation. This he declined to do and for some time a very strained situation existed in Kyoto, an armed struggle being ultimately averted by the good offices of the Three Middle Ministers.

It was evident, however, that the circ.u.mstances had become critical, and it was further evident that, as long as Ishida Katsushige's intrigues continued, a catastrophe might at any moment be precipitated. Sensible of these things, a party of loyal men, spoken of in history as the "seven generals"--Ikeda Terumasa (ancestor of the present Marquis Ikeda); Kato Kiyomasa; Kuroda Nagamasa (son of Kuroda Yos.h.i.taka, and ancestor of the present Marquis Kuroda); f.u.kushima Masanori, Asano Yukinaga (son of Asano Nagamasa and ancestor of the present Marquis Asano); Hosokawa Tadaoki, and Kato Yoshiaki (ancestor of the present Viscount Kato)--vowed to take Ishida's life, while he was still in Osaka Castle, whither he had gone (1599) to attend the death-bed of his friend, Maeda Toshiiye.

Ishida, finding himself powerless to resist such a combination after the death of Maeda, took an extraordinary step; he appealed to the protection of Ieyasu--that is to say, to the protection of the very man against whom all his plots had been directed. And Ieyasu protected him.

We are here confronted by a riddle which has never been clearly interpreted. Why did Ishida seek asylum from Ieyasu whom he had persistently intrigued to overthrow, and why did Ieyasu, having full knowledge of these intrigues, grant asylum? Possibly an answer to the former question can be furnished by the fact that Ishida was in sore straits. Attending Maeda Toshiiye's death-bed, he had seen the partisans of the deceased baron transfer their allegiance to Ieyasu through the intervention of Hosokawa Tadaoki, and he had learned that his own life was immediately threatened by the seven generals. Even if he succeeded (which was very problematical) in escaping from Osaka to his own castle of Sawa-yama, in Omi province, the respite could have been but brief and such a step would have been equivalent to abandoning the political arena. Only a very strong arm could save him, and with consummate insight he may have appreciated the Tokugawa chief's unreadiness to precipitate a crucial struggle by consenting to his death.

But what is to be said of Ieyasu? Unwilling to admit that his astuteness could ever have been at fault, some historians allege that the Tokugawa chief saved Ishida's life with the deliberate purpose of letting him discredit himself and his partisans by continued intrigues. These annalists allege, in fact, that Ieyasu, acting on the advice of Honda Masan.o.bu, by whose profound shrewdness he was largely guided, saved the life of Ishida in order that the latter's subsequent intrigues might furnish a pretext for destroying Hideyori.

That, however, is scarcely conceivable, for Ishida had many powerful confederates, and the direct outcome of the leniency shown by Ieyasu on that occasion was an armed struggle from which he barely emerged victorious. The truth seems to be that, for all his profound wisdom, Ieyasu erred in this instance. Ishida Kotsushige outwitted him. For, during the very days of his asylum in Fushimi, under the protection of Ieyasu, Ishida opened secret communication with Uesugi Kagekatsu and invited him to strike at the Tokugawa. Uesugi consented. It must be observed that the character of Ishida has been portrayed for posterity mainly by historians who were under Tokugawa influence.

Modern and impartial annalists are by no means so condemnatory in their judgment of the man. In whatever arts of deception Ishida excelled, Ieyasu was at least his equal; while in the matter of loyalty to the Toyotomi family, Ishida's conduct compares favourably with that of the Tokugawa leader; and if we look at the men who attached themselves to Ishida's cause and fought by his side, we are obliged to admit that he must have been highly esteemed by his contemporaries, or, at any rate, that they recognized in him the champion of Hideyori, at whose father's hands they had received such benefits.

ORGANIZATION OF THE j.a.pANESE EMPIRE AT THE CLOSE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

The realm of j.a.pan was then held by 214 feudatories, each having an annual income of at least 10,000 koku (omitting minor landowners).

These 214 estates yielded to their holders a total income of nearly nineteen million koku, and of that aggregate the domains of the five n.o.blemen forming the Board of Senior Statesmen const.i.tuted one-third.

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the wealthiest. His domains in the eight provinces forming the Kwanto yielded an income of 2,557,000 koku.

Next on the list came Mori Terumoto with 2,205,000 koku, and Uesugi Kagekatsu with 1,200,000 koku. The latter two were partisans of Ishida. But direct communication between their forces was difficult, for while the Mori domains covered the nine provinces on the extreme west of the main island, Uesugi's lay on the north of the Kwanto, whence they stretched to the sh.o.r.e of the j.a.pan Sea. Fourth and fifth on the Board of Senior Statesmen were Maeda Toshiiye, whose fief (835,000 koku) occupied Kaga and Etchu; and Ukita Hideiye (574,000 koku), whose castle stood at Oka-yama, in Bizen. All these, except Maeda embraced the anti-Tokugawa cause of Ishida Katsushige, and it thus becomes easy to understand the desire of Ishida to win over Maeda Toshinaga, son of Toshiiye, to his camp. On the side of Ieyasu's foes were also marshalled Shimazu Yoshihisa, feudal chief of Satsuma (700,000 koku); Satake Yoshin.o.bu of Hitachi province (545,700 koku); Konishi Yukinaga in Higo (200,000 koku), who was counted one of the greatest captains of the era, and, nominally, Kohayakawa Hideaki in Chikuzen (522,500 koku). With Ieyasu were the powerful daimyo: Date Masamune of Sendai (580,000 koku); Kato Kiyomasa of k.u.mamoto (250,000 koku); Hosokawa Tadaoki of Tango (230,000 koku); Ikeda Terumasa of Mikawa (152,000 koku), and Kuroda Nagamasa of Chikuzen (250,000 koku). This a.n.a.lysis omits minor names.

BATTLE OF SEKIGAHARA

The plan of campaign formed by Ishida and his confederates was that Uesugi and Satake should attack the Kwanto from the north and the east simultaneously, while Mori and Ukita should move against Fushimi and occupy Kyoto. In May, 1600, Ieyasu went through the form of requiring Uesugi to repair to Kyoto and explain his obviously disaffected preparations. The reply sent by Uesugi was defiant.

Therefore, the Tokugawa chief proceeded to mobilize his own and his allies' forces. He seems to have clearly foreseen that if he himself moved eastward to Yedo, Momo-yama would be a.s.saulted in his absence.

But it being necessary to simulate trust in Mori and Ukita, then nominally his supporters, he placed in Momo-yama Castle a garrison of only two thousand men under his old and staunch friend, Torii Mototada. Ieyasu planned that Uesugi should be attacked simultaneously from five directions; namely from Sendai by Date; from Kaga by Maeda; from Dewa by Mogami; from Echigo by Hori, and from Hitachi by Satake. But among these five armies that of Satake declared for Ishida, while those of Maeda and Hori were constrained to adopt a defensive att.i.tude by the menace of hostile barons in their vicinity, and thus it fell out that Date and Mogami alone operated effectively in the cause of Ieyasu.

The Tokugawa chief himself lost no time in putting his troops in motion for Yedo, where, at the head of some sixty thousand men, he arrived in August, 1600, his second in command being his third son, Hidetada. Thence he pushed rapidly northward with the intention of attacking Uesugi. But at Oyama in Shimotsuke news reached him that Ishida and his partisans had drawn the sword in the west, and had seized Osaka, together with the wives and families of several of the captains who were with Ieyasu's army. A council was immediately held and these captains were given the option of continuing to serve under Ieyasu or retiring to join the western army and thus ensuring the safety of their own families. They chose the former, and the council further decided that, leaving Date and Mogami to deal with Uesugi and Satake, and posting for the same purpose at Utsunomiya, Hideyasu, second son of Ieyasu, the main army should countermarch to meet the western forces at some point remote from Yedo.

The Tokugawa battalions, following two routes--the Tokaido and the Nakasendo--made rapid progress westward, and on September 21st, the van of the division under f.u.kushima and Ikeda reached Kiyosu. But the Nakasendo column of thirty-eight thousand men under Hidetada encountered such desperate resistance before the castle of Ueda, at the hands of Sanada Masayuki, that it did not reach Sekigahara until the great battle was over. Meanwhile, the western army had pushed steadily eastward. Its first exploit was to capture and burn the Momo-yama castle, which was splendidly defended by the veteran Torii Mototada, then in his sixty-second year. With a garrison of only two thousand men he held at bay during eleven days an investing force of forty thousand. The torch was set to the castle on the 8th of September by traitors in the garrison, and Mototada committed suicide. Thereafter, the van of the western army advanced to Gifu along the Nakasendo, and the main body, making a detour through Ise, ultimately pushed forward into Mino.

With this army were no less than forty-three generals of renown, and the number of feudal barons, great and small, who sent troops to swell its ranks was thirty-one. Undoubtedly these barons were partially influenced by the conception generally prevalent that the fortunes of the two great families of Toyotomi and Tokugawa depended on the issue of this struggle. But it must also be admitted that had Ishida Katsushige been as black as the Tokugawa historians paint him, he could never have served for the central figure of such an array.

He is seen inciting the besiegers of Momo-yama Castle to their supreme and successful effort. He is seen winning over to the Toyotomi cause baron after baron. He is seen leading the advance of the western army's van. And he is seen fighting to the end in the great battle which closed the campaign. Some heroic qualities must have accompanied his gift of statesmanship. The nominal leader of the western army, which mustered 128,000 strong, was Mori Terumoto, and under him were ranged Ukita Hideiye, Mori Hidemoto, Shimazu Yoshihiro, Konishi Yukinaga, and many other captains of repute. Under the Tokugawa banners there marched 75,000 men, their van led by Ii Naomasa and Honda Tadakatsu.

On October 21, 1600, the great battle of Sekigahara was fought. The strategy on the side of the western forces was excellent. Their units were disposed along a crescent-shaped line recessed from the enemy, so that an attacking army, unless its numerical strength was greatly superior, had to incur the risk of being enveloped from both flanks--a risk much accentuated by the fact that these flanking troops occupied high ground. But on the side of the western army there was a feature of weakness which no strategy could remove: all the battalions const.i.tuting the right wing were pledged to espouse the cause of Ieyasu at the crisis of the struggle. There were six of these battalions, large or small, and they were commanded by Akakura, Ogawa, Kuchiki, Wakizaka, Kohayakawa, and Kikkawa. Thus, not only were the eastern troops able to deliver their attack in full force against the centre and left of their foes, but also the latter were exposed to the most demoralizing of all eventualities, treachery.

After a fierce fight the western army was completely defeated. Some accounts put its losses at 35,000 men; others, with greater probability, estimating that only 100,000 men were actually engaged on both sides--namely, 60,000 on the Tokugawa side, and 40,000 on the Toyotomi--conclude that the losses were 6000 and 9000, respectively.

Shimazu of Satsuma, at the head of a handful of samurai, cut his way through the lines of Ieyasu, and reaching Osaka, embarked hastily for Kyushu. Ishida Katsushige lay concealed in a cave for a few days, but was ultimately seized and beheaded, in company with Konishi Yukinaga and Ankokuji Ekei, at the execution ground in Kyoto. This one battle ended the struggle: there was no rally. Punishment followed quickly for the feudatories who had fought against the Tokugawa. Thus Mori Terumoto's domain, originally covering eight provinces and yielding a revenue of 1,205,000 koku, was reduced to the two provinces of Suwo and Nagato, yielding 300,000 koku. The three provinces of Ukita Hideiye were entirely forfeited, and he himself was banished to the island Hachijoshima. Oda Hiden.o.bu, grandson of n.o.bunaga, Masuda Nagamori, and Sanada Masayuki, with his son, were ordered to take the tonsure and retire to the monastery of Koya-san. The fief of Uesugi Kagekatsu was reduced from 1,200,000 koku in Aizu to 300,000 koku in Yonezawa; and the 800,000 koku of the Satake family in Hitachi were exchanged for 200,000 koku in Akita. Only the Shimazu family of Satsuma remained without loss. Secured by inaccessibility, it continued to hold the provinces of Satsuma, Osumi, and Hyuga, with a revenue of 700,000 koku.

REDISTRIBUTION OF THE FIEFS

These measures represented only a fraction of the readjustments then effected. Ieyasu, following the example, set on a small scale by the Taiko, parcelled out the country in such a manner as to provide security against future trouble. Dividing the feudatories into hereditary va.s.sals (fudai no kerai) and exterior n.o.bles (tozama), he a.s.signed to the former small but greatly increased estates situated so as to command the main highways as well as the great cities of central j.a.pan, and he located the exterior n.o.bles--many of them with largely reduced domains--in districts remote not only from Yedo and Kyoto but also from each other, wherever such method of distribution was possible. Moreover, in the most important places--as Osaka, Fushimi, Sakai, Nagasaki, Yamada (in Ise), and Sado (the gold mines), there were appointed administrators (bugyo), direct nominees of the Tokugawa; while Kyoto was put under the sway of a deputy of the shogun (shoshidai). Again, although the tozama daimyo received tolerably munificent treatment in the matter of estates, their resources were seriously crippled by the imposition of costly public works. These works consisted mainly of restoring dilapidated castles or building new ones on a scale so colossal as to be exceeded by only the stronghold at Osaka. It is recorded that when f.u.kushima Masanori, lord of Kiyosu in Owari, complained of the crippling effects of these severe requisitions, Kato Kiyomasa told him that there was no alternative except to retire to his castle and defy Yedo. The most costly of the edifices that came into existence in these circ.u.mstances was the castle of Nagoya, which is still one of the wonders of j.a.pan. Twenty great barons took part in erecting it; the leading artists of the time were engaged in its interior decoration, and the roof of its donjon was crowned with, two gold dolphins, measuring nearly nine feet in height.

IEYASU BECOMES SHOGUN

On the 28th of March, 1603, the Emperor nominated Ieyasu to be minister of the Right and sei-i tai-shogun, presenting to him at the same time the conventional ox-chariot and military baton. Nine days later, the Tokugawa chief repaired to the palace to return thanks for these honours. The Emperor with his own hands gave him the drinking-cup and expressed profound gratification that through his military skill the wars which had convulsed the nation were ended, and the foundations of the empire's peace securely laid. Ieyasu was then in his sixty-second year. In the following May, Hideyori was made nai-daijin, and in the same month a marriage was contracted between him, then in his eleventh year, and Tenju-in, the seven-year-old daughter of Hidetada, son and successor of Ieyasu.

YEDO AND KYOTO

Ieyasu now took up his residence at Momo-yama Castle and Hidetada was ordered to live in Yedo. But the former made it a custom to go eastward every autumn on the pretext of enjoying the sport of falconry, and to remain in Yedo until the next spring. In February, 1605, the Tokugawa chief's return to Kyoto from the Kwanto capital was made the occasion of a great military display. Both Ieyasu and Hidetada travelled at the same time with a following of 170,000 soldiers, who were encamped outside the city whence they marched in, ten thousand daily, during seventeen consecutive days. This martial parade is said to have produced a great effect upon the n.o.bles of the Kinai and the western provinces. But Ieyasu did not long retain the office of shogun. In 1605, he conveyed to the Imperial Court his desire to be relieved of military functions, in favour of his son Hidetada, and the Emperor at once consented, so that Hidetada succeeded to all the offices of his father, and Ieyasu retired to the castle of Sumpu, the capital of Suruga. His income was thenceforth reduced to 120,000 koku annually, derived from estates in the provinces of Mino, Ise, and Omi. But this retirement was in form rather than in fact. All administrative affairs, great or small, were managed in Sumpu, the shogun in Yedo exercising merely the power of sanction. Ieyasu made, frequent journeys to Yedo under the pretext of hawking but in reality for government purposes.

THE YEDO BAKUFU

It was on the 30th of August, 1590, that Ieyasu made his first formal entry into Yedo from Sumpu. Yedo Castle had previously been occupied by an agent of the Hojo clan. It was very small, and its surroundings consisted of barren plains and a few fishing villages. On the northwest was the moor of Musashi, and on the southeast a forest of reeds marked the littoral of Yedo Bay. The first task that devolved upon Ieyasu was the reclamation of land for building purposes. Some substantial work was done, yet the place did not suggest any fitness for the purpose of an administrative centre, and not until the battle of Sekigahara placed him in command of immense resources, did Ieyasu decide to make Yedo his capital. He then had large recourse to labour requisitioned from the feudatories. By these means hills were levelled, swamps reclaimed, and embankments built, so that the whole aspect of the region was changed, and sites were provided for the residences of various barons and for the establishment of shops and stores whose owners flocked to the new city from Osaka, Kyoto, and other towns. Thereafter, a castle of colossal dimensions, exceeding even the Osaka fortress in magnitude and magnificence, was rapidly constructed, the feudatories being required to supply labour and materials in a measure which almost overtaxed their resources.